Miguel graces the art issue of Fault Magazine. In his cover story, the “Adorn” singer speaks about being compared to Prince, his longevity in music and his third album Wildheart.
Read excerpts from his interview below.
On being compared to Prince…
I need to think about that. No I think we’re all standing on the shoulders of giants. Especially at this point in time, we’re learning from and building upon things that have already occurred, that have already been dreamed up. Being compared to Prince, it’s a tremendous compliment. I think it’s more about people being aware and exposed and really understanding the music then they’d see there’s a lot more to it.
On his longevity…
Miguel: I really just owe it to the fans. “WildHeart” wasn’t a crazy commercially successful album. It was for me but as far as the way that it’s perceived it wasn’t known as that. To debut at whatever on the charts, that’s great, but as far as being a popular album it wasn’t. The fans made it important and the fans give me longevity.
I had a conversation with J.Cole, that’s my boy, like “what would you attribute all this shit to?” And he said “man, this is serving my fans.” It’s our responsibility to the people who found our music to continue to build that relationship. An artist creates according to what he thinks the world should be. Unfortunately not everyone is going to agree with that, but the ones that do, those are the ones you wanted in the first place. The ones that agree with you then you just keep giving them what is real to you.
On the most personal song on Wildheart…
They’re all personal. “Hollywood Dreams” is a very personal song just because I’ve had friends who’ve been washed out. I grew up in San Pedro where you can’t see Hollywood but the moment you get out of the South Bay, you see like the hills and the mountain ranges and it’s kind of an aspirational thing. And I’ve seen people come out of the South Bay, which I would consider being “down the hill,” move North and end up washed out because of the “scene” and the way things move here. You can walk down Hollywood Boulevard and it’s like that still. The idea of being “discovered” is there, it’s tangible. But then on that same street there’s homeless people. So “Hollywood Dreams” in that sense is a very personal song because it’s inspired by things I’ve seen.
It’s also an introspective song about literally being in between. On being understood because of the way that I look and the way that I was raised.
